Dioceses take safety steps, check workers

Catechism teachers at Roman Catholic parishes across Connecticut are undergoing a level of scrutiny that was unheard of in the Church until this year.

Luther Turmelle

Published
12:00 am EDT, Monday, October 13, 2003

The volunteer religious education teachers are being asked to fill out forms and provide information that will be used to do background checks. So are other church workers in both paid and volunteer positions.

Welcome to the new reality of the Roman Catholic Church in America.

The measures that church leaders say are being taken to protect parishioners children come in the aftermath of child sex abuse revelations that have rocked dioceses across the country for the past several years.

Church leaders say whats being done to protect children is almost unprecedented in the United States.

"I cant think of any organization in this country that is undertaking something of this magnitude," said Joseph McAleer, a spokesman for the Diocese of Bridgeport, which serves the 87 Catholic parishes in Fairfield County. "Its a huge undertaking, and I think it shows great foresight on the part of the Church."

The Bridgeport Diocese began giving sexual abuse awareness training and doing background checks on all employees, volunteers and contract workers in June as part of its Safe Environments Initiative, McAleer said. Parishioners were told of the initiative in a letter that went out in July.

McAleer said it will be several more months before all 20,000 workers and volunteers in the diocese have been trained and have undergone background checks.

Some church experts, however, say such a broad-based solution to prevent child sex abuse is unwarranted.

"Its not that this is unnecessary, but I think that its overkill and it deflects attention away from the real issue," said Paul Lakeland, a professor of religious studies at Fairfield University. "I dont think the typical parishioner is concerned about their child being molested by church employees. Its a problem that has been largely confined to the clergy."

While the Bridgeport diocese has been implementing its Safe Environments Initiative for months, a similar effort is in its early stages in parishes that are part of the Archdiocese of Hartford, said the Rev.

Peter Dargan, pastor of Holy Infant Church in Orange.

Dargan said he found two lay people in his parish who have taken the child abuse awareness training and will soon be training workers and volunteers at Catholic churches in Woodbridge, West Haven and Milford, as well as at Holy Infant.

Dargan said he thinks the anti-abuse initiative is necessary. Like many other Catholic parishes nationwide, Holy Infant has the services of dozens of local volunteers to teach religious education to youths.

"Anything that it takes to protect the kids, Im in favor of," Dargan said. "This is the worst crisis in the Churchs history. If you had told me a few years ago that this kind of activity was going on to the extent that it has been exposed, Id have said you were hallucinating."

Dargan said that even before the Hartford diocese launched the safety initiative, he wasnt aware of a groundswell among parishioners for more strict oversight of workers and volunteers.

"If a parish has a good pastor, they are well-pleased and are not going to be clamoring for this," Dargan said.

Officials of the Archdiocese of Hartford, which serves 216 parishes in New Haven, Hartford and Litchfield counties, could not be reached for comment on their version of the Safe Environments Initiative.

In Milford, news of the archdioceses version of the Safe Environments Initiative hadnt reached parent Maryann Salzillo, but she said she is supportive of such efforts. Salzillo has two children who are attending St. Marys Catholic School.

"I think thats great," she said of the safety initiative. "Im surprised, though. I would have thought theyd have had that in place long ago."

McAleer said the feedback that the Bridgeport diocese has gotten from parishioners has been extremely positive.